Social Psychology and Interaction Commons^™

Work Namaste: The Importance Of Mattering At Work, And How A Leader Can Create An Environment Where Employees Feel They And Their Work Matter, Rebecca J. Lamperski

Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects

The concept of mattering is an underdeveloped, yet important component of an employee’s success in the workplace, and personal well-being. Deficit-based leadership strategies employed by many organizations can break-down the ability for an employee to feel that they and their work matter, however, the focus by leaders on mattering can lead employees to feel: my leader is invested in my success, I am noticed, I am cared about, I am depended upon, I would be missed if I were not here, my leader is interested in what I say and do, I am appreciated, and I am noticed for ...

Modeling Initial Participation Of Diverse Communities In Competitive Swimming, Dane W. Wolfrom, Emily J. Murray, Angela M. Dominguez

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

This research note introduces the Initial Participation Model, which theorizes continued participation in a activity or group before individuals make commitment is a function of: enjoyment, feeling of inclusion, and/or involvement opportunities. The specific focus of this research is investigating how deficiency in enjoyment, feeling of inclusion, and involvement opportunities may discourage continuing participation in competitive swimming by underrepresented populations such as African American, Black, Hispanic, Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander and low-socioeconomic communities. Details explain how initial participation differs from other sport stages by emphasizing participation; relating to program instead of sport; and resetting each time an individual ...

Craft Beer Consumers' Lifestyles And Perceptions Of Locality, John Long, Natalia Velikova Phd, Tim Dodd, Sheila Scott-Halsell

International Journal of Hospitality Beverage Management

The study aimed to add to the body of knowledge about the craft beer market by developing profiles of South/Midwest U.S. craft beer consumers. Data were collected via a self-administered, structured survey distributed at a craft beer festival. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabs, exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis, and ANOVA were utilized for analysis. Major findings articulated consumers’ perceptions of local craft beer, the lifestyle types that are most prevalent among craft beer drinkers, and how lifestyle affects consumption habits and purchasing decisions. The research suggests that lifestyle grouping is an effective way to segment the craft beer market. Findings ...

Finding Friends: Understanding The Role Of Social Media In The Construction Of Offline Social Networks, Alecea Ritter Standlee

Sociology Faculty Publications

This presentation examined the role of social media consumption in the establishment of offline social networks among young adults. The research suggests that perceptions about political and social attitudes of individuals, based on their social media postings, may act as a filter in offline networks, potentially increasing homogeneous social networks.

Explicit, Implicit, And Behavioral Stigmatization Of Mental Illness, Jessica S. James

Dissertations

Mental health concern is a public health concern that continues to be stigmatized. While the dual process model has been applied to other areas of social cognition (e.g., racism), this framework has not previously been frequently used to examine the stigmatization of mental illness. The current study sought to examine the stigmatization of mental illness within a dual process model to determine the relationship between explicit and implicit stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors. A total of 104 undergraduate students from the University of Southern Mississippi participated in this study. Participants completed multiple implicit and explicit measures of stigmatizing attitudes and ...

Intellectual Philanthropy: The Seduction Of The Masses, Aurélie Vialette

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Intellectual Philanthropy: The Seduction of the Masses by Aurélie Vialette examines the practice of philanthropy in modern Spain. Through detailed studies of popular music, collective readings, dramas, working-class manuals, and fiction, Vialette reveals how depictions of urban philanthropic activities can inform our understanding of interactions in the economic, cultural, religious, and educational spheres, class power dynamics, and gender roles in urban Spanish society.

Building Bigness: Reputation, Prominence, And Social Capital In Rural South India, Eleanor A. Power, Elspeth Ready

Sociology Department, Faculty Publications

Anthropologists have long been concerned with how reputations help people gain the support of others. Here, we study the support ties among adult residents of two Tamil villages, asking how reputational standing in each village mediates access to social support. We find that a reputation for influence has the weakest effect on support ties with others, while a reputation for generosity has the strongest. Further, a reputation for influence is not associated with greater connections to people of “high position” outside the village. Given the weak effects of a reputation for influence, we turn to a network measure of social ...

Complexities And Challenges Of Nonduality, Elizabeth Stephens

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

States of consciousness referred to as nonduality, awakening, enlightenment, moksha, peak experience, unitive states, or void states, among other terms, have garnered increasing secular attention and have become a topic of psychological and neuroscientific research. A review of the literature revealed many challenges to studying this set of states, such as inconsistent conceptualizations, a variety of models and theories, and conflicting descriptions indicating that the actual experience may not live up to the superlative descriptions found in historical texts or the expectations put forth by nondual teachers. A great deal more empirical research on this topic is needed, and researchers ...

Law And Family Formation Among Lgbq-Parent Families, Emily Kazyak, Brandi Woodell, Kristin S. Scherrer, Emma Finken

Sociology Department, Faculty Publications

This article addresses how the law affects family formation among families with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) parents in the United States. Our discussion draws on a socio-legal approach to law that focuses not only on the law on the books (what we refer to as “legal barriers”) but also on issues like how the law is practiced, how people experience the law in everyday life, and how the law serves as an interpretive framework through which people understand themselves and their families (what we refer to as “social barriers”). In our review, we highlight how attorneys can play ...

Pathways To Friendship - Building Friendships One Person At A Time: An Innovative Two-Year Project To Expand And Improve The Inclusion Of People With Idd, Christine J. Clifford, Jim Ross

Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center Publications

For people with Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD), making friends and participating in the community can be a challenge. Pathways to Friendship (Pathways), is a collaboration between The Arc of Massachusetts (The Arc) and the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services (DDS) with an evaluation component provided by The Center for Developmental Disabilities Evaluation and Research (CDDER). Pathways includes training and consultation to disability service organizations on approaches to improve community inclusion and establish friendships between people with and without IDD.

"Mine" Or "Ours": Property And Moral Reasoning, Robert J. Nonomura

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research seeks to address long-standing empirical questions about human morality arising from the critical sociological tradition. It examines, in social-psychological terms, the theoretical contention that systems of ownership predicated on exclusionary conceptions of what is “mine” and/or “ours” causes people to overlook or decidedly ignore the needs of others and of society at large. More specifically, it draws upon the theoretical works of Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson, and C. B. Macpherson to examine the relationships between individuals’ attitudes toward private property relations and the kinds of “active” or “passive” cognitive processes individuals use when reasoning about ...

Preventing Prejudiced Psychological Practice: Social Justice Education In Undergraduate Psychology Programs, Rachel Roewer

Global Honors Theses

In order to provide sufficient mental health care services and produce ethical research, psychologists must be motivated to inhibit their personal biases. Bias in psychological research and mental health care settings can contribute to the perpetuation of oppression, preventing clients who identify with marginalized groups from receiving adequate mental health services. Prejudice amongst mental health care providers can influence misdiagnosis and wrongful prescription of medication. Psychological research informs clinical practices, thus biased research can lead to prejudiced mental health care practices. To ensure that members of marginalized groups receive effective health care, there is a global need for ethical, culturally ...

Does Mental Illness Affect Societal Perception Of Sex Offenders?, Keely A. Bartram

Student Theses

Although mental illness is common in the sex offender population, it has never been examined how evidence of such may influence societal perception. In comparison to the non-sex offender population, it was hypothesized that participants would consider mental illness less mitigating for sex offenders, would be less likely to support the mental health treatment of sex offenders while incarcerated, and would consider certain mental illnesses (schizophrenia and substance abuse disorders) as particularly aggravating for this group of offenders. Respondents were asked to read a short vignette and then respond to a series of questions about culpability, sentencing decisions, and mental ...

The Sociology Of Bullying: Prevention And Intervention Using A Three Themed Model, Darcy Bowman

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a bullying intervention model that involves visibility, intervention and support for vulnerable populations. Vulnerable populations are considered to be LGBT youth, gender non-conforming youth, and racial/religious minorities. Research showed that factors in effective bullying intervention programs fell into the themes of visibility, support, and intervention for vulnerable populations. Guidance Counselors at three public schools in the New York State capital region answered questionnaires about how their school’s bullying intervention program incorporated the identified themes. The results indicated that schools which programs incorporated high levels of visibility, support ...

Shoes @ The Krasl: Photographs, Michael R. Hill

Sociology Department, Faculty Publications

The Krasl Art Center, in Saint Joseph, Michigan, is not only an energetic organization but also an ever evolving physical space replete with exciting sculptural experiments. My longtime Krasl favorite, Michael Dunbar’s dramatic Allegheny Drift, was the setting for the initial photograph (inset) in what became my visual explorations with the Blue Shoes (documented in The Year- Long Adventures of the Blue Shoes and Their Friends (Lincoln: Zea Books, 2016); available gratis as a PDF download from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/49/). Inspired by the recent transformations of the Krasl’s grounds ...

Bullies And Allies Near The Playground: Mothers' Experiences Of Aggression In Their Children's Schools, Mara Vicente Robinson

Dissertations

Despite an increasing understanding of the importance of both parent-involvement and aggression among women, there appears to be little understanding of how these two areas influence each other; specifically, the lack of literature examining the extent to which female guardians experienced aggression from other female guardians and the effect it had on their involvement in their children’s schools. In an effort to investigate the extent to which aggression was prevalent among female guardians, the factors that influenced the aggression, and the effects of that aggression on women’s involvement in their children’s education, a convergent parallel mixed methods ...

Panel Session 3b, Virginia Rutter, Maggie Obaid, Sarah Mulhall Adelman

A Day in May

The Framingham Model: What have learned from the FSU Teach-ins?
Virginia Rutter

Investigating public support for the ‘Hug a Terrorist” model of radicalization prevention
Maggie Obaid

“Habitually immoral, disorderly or ungovernable”: Interrogating Concepts of Delinquency in Nineteenth-Century Institutions for Children
Sarah Mulhall Adelman

Paranormal Beliefs And Their Effect On American Fears And Political Identification, Tyler James Ferrari

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

Urban legends and conspiracy theories have been a cornerstone of American culture for many years, and these stories and theories have permeated into many aspects of society, from tourism to pop culture, but how have these stories and theories affected politics? Conspiracy theories and urban legends all revolve around the distrust of institutions, ranging from governments to the media, but there is very little research to indicate how beliefs in these types of phenomena affect political self-identification, and fear in real-world disasters. This paper seeks to answer the following: How do paranormal and abnormal beliefs influence political identification? And how ...

Immersed In Fire: The Use Of Virtual Reality As An Attitude Assessor And Boundary Object In Wildland Fire Management, Casey Olechnowicz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Interest in using prescribed burning as a forest management tool to promote forest health and regeneration is growing in Maine. The goal for this research was to better understand the way that the public perceives prescribed burning practices in wildland-urban interfaces, with an emphasis placed on how immersive imagery, closely related to virtual reality (VR), compares to traditional communication methods. We specifically focus on the social acceptability of prescribed burning and analyze how the level of immersive imagery is related to that acceptability (Ahn, 2015; Bricken, 1990; Fogg, Cuellar, and Danielson, 2009; Smith 2015; Wiederhold, Davis, and Wiederhold, 1998). The ...

Self-Construal Influence On Individual Choice Does Culture Shape Our Choices?, Marrie Shirzada

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

Previous research has shown that cultural values and individual preferences for uniqueness and conformity influence one another, and that a theme of uniqueness is prevalent within North American culture and a theme of conformity is prevalent within East Asian culture. The goal of the present research was to examine the causal role of self-construal by investigating whether priming participants with either independent or interdependent self-construal could lead to differences in choice patterns that mirror themes of uniqueness and conformity that is traditionally found between East Asian and North American cultures. It was hypothesized that participants primed with independent self-construal will ...